1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to the production of a semi-moist food product having a meaty appearance. The food product is produced in a manner such that it resembles meat marbled throughout with fat.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Presently only two methods for the production of semi-moist marbled meat food products are known. These methods are thoroughly described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,380,832 issued to David P. Bone and U.S. Pat. No. 3,765,902 issued to Wayne M. Charter. As discussed in the Charter patent, the process described by Bone suffers from the disadvantage of requiring excessive personal attention. Although the apparatus and process described by Charter appears to alleviate the problems of excessive personnel, the Charter process requires the use of extruders to cook the dough-like material forming the food product. Such extruder-cookers, however, are capable of handling only viscous doughs. Should the product desired require the use of a dough having a low viscosity, extruders of the type used by the prior art would not be capable of cooking such a dough. This becomes apparent when the product desired is to have a final moisture content above 35 percent. To produce a product having a high moisture content requires the use of doughs having extremely low viscosity. Without the use of viscosity builders within the dough, extruders are not capable of working the dough to produce a substantially solid type of food product. Further, these extruder-cookers are complex pieces of equipment which require the use of a plurality of barrel sections, each section being maintained at different temperature levels. Such cookers must be inspected and cleaned at frequent intervals requiring a great deal of effort. Consequently much effort has been undertaken to find systems for the production of semi-moist foods which do not require the use of complex, expensive extruder-cookers, yet yield a product of the same quality as that obtained when using such extruder-cookers.